Family Motto: Spero meliora. (Loosely translated as, "I hope for better things")
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Sunday, 3 January 2010

Yesterdays forecast for the South East today was that it would be clear and bright. I suppose that was meant to mean the snowflakes that are falling on my patio as I write this. Tossers. And they really mean to say that they can predict the weather in 30 years time?

Try getting the next 24 hours correct.

Obviously that £30,000,000 computer is no good for forecasting the weather. As you've proved it's so useless, can I have it as a gaming machine?

Now for a young lad whose only experience of foreign travel was a single holiday in France, this was an astounding experience in the difference between West and East.

Firstly, the weather, hot and humid, like nothing I'd ever imagined.

Secondly, the smell. Fragrant plant smells with a coupcon of open drain.

Thirdly, everyone was smaller than me.

I'd been told that I would be met by the "Agent", whoever he was. Surprise surprise, I was met by a very polite Chinese Gentleman who informed that the ship hadn't arrived and that he would convey me to a hotel.

The hotel was one of those old colonial buildings of which many were built in the time when Great Britain ruled most of the world. Lofty, large, airy, and truly amazing compared with the average british house.

Anyway back to the tale of this young Engineer cadet..................

The following morning, after a truly amazing breakfast of Nasi Goreng, the agent returned to take me to my ship. The RFA Retainer. (Pictured above).

The Retainer was an ammunition stores ship which carried a variety of those very stores that make very loud bangs when they're angry. Even the biggest known to man. (still covered by the Official Secrets Act, so I'm being discrete here).

Anyway. having walked up the brow I was sent to see the Second Engineer who would be like a God to me. The power of authority on ships in those days was truly immense. After being suitably humbled as to my lowly state in the heirarchy, I was shown to my cabin. A rabbit hutch that I had to share with another cadet.

That's enough for now. Next episode will be about............................. Doxfords. Maybe.